Al Cross: CNHI closes weeklies in NE Ky., university town 55 miles away has no paper
by Al Cross
The Rural Blog
One of the largest chains of community newspapers, Community Newspaper Holdings Inc., has undertaken an unusual consolidation of its northeastern Kentucky weeklies into a daily.
“Welcome to a change,” read the April 29 headline in The Morehead News, over a message from Group Publisher Patty Bennett, informing readers that the paper “will merge with our sister newspaper, The Daily Independent in Ashland,” because of lack of advertising during the pandemic. “The Daily Independent will undertake coverage of Morehead.” In other words, Morehead, a university town of 7,000 in a county of 25,000, no longer has a local newspaper.
A similar message appeared in the Grayson Journal-Enquirer and the Olive Hill Times, essentially the same paper with slightly different content, in Carter County, between Morehead and Ashland. CHNI also killed off the Greenup County News-Times, a weekly in another county adjoining Ashland and Boyd County; it’s in the metropolitan area of Ashland and Huntington, W.Va.; Carter County is not, though it is oriented to Ashland. Rowan County is neither; Morehead is 55 miles from Ashland, and 65 miles from downtown Lexington.
